Due South Brewing declines several buyout offers

Due South Brewing’s founder and head brewer Mike Halker said he will not sell the Boynton Beach brewery to Anheuser-Busch — for now. (Photo: Courtesy Due South Brewing)

If Anheuser-Busch is looking to buy its way into Florida’s craft beer market, it won’t be through Due South Brewing.

Due South has fielded offers to buy its brewery as recently as today — Monday morning — but its founder said he isn’t selling.

Mike Halker, owner and head brewer at the 3-year-old Boynton Beach brewery wouldn’t confirm that latest suitor is Anheuser-Busch, which reportedly is interested in buying Tampa’s Cigar City Brewing. But he said he has been contacted “multiple times by multiple parties … as recently as today.”

The prospect of a big payday isn’t enough — right now — to make Halker jump at a paycheck.

“I’d much rather make beer than have a big check right now,” Halker said.

Halker started the brewery in 2012 after home brewing his award-winning Caramel Cream Ale, which has become the brewery’s staple and hallmark. Due South has grown into the best-selling craft beer in Palm Beach County.

Yet craft beer made up less than 8 percent of national beer sales, about 4 percent in Florida, as recently as 2013, the last year for which statistics are available from the Colorado-based Brewers Association. Florida ranks 25th in the country in barrels of beers produced with nearly 130,000, according to the association’s statistics.

Still, craft beer has been eating modestly into macro beer sales of companies such as Anheuser-Busch with craft beer sales growing more than 17 percent in 2013.

News of its interest in Cigar City, the state’s largest craft beer producer, came a week after the company aired a Budweiser ad poking fun at craft beer drinkers during the Super Bowl.

Craft beer aficionados recoiled. They fear bigger mass-production, with an eye trained on profit instead of quality, could affect artisanal beers which are often lovingly made by hand instead of automated machines.

“We don’t make decisions at Due South based on the cheapest way to do something,” Halker said. “If we’re going to do something, we’re going to do it the right way.”

While Halker said he wouldn’t rule out such a sale in the future, he says he can’t foresee it anytime soon.

“We’re a family here,” Halker said. “To give this up for a big check, I just wouldn’t do it…. I don’t have any intention of having anyone tell me how to run my company.”